—RABBIT, RABBIT

  

                 Crushed Pepper

 

Her parents were gone,

         the basement dark but 

for a window shaped like 

         a Hersey’s bar. Light came 

through it when she removed

          her last piece. I didn’t know 

where to put my eyes. A map 

          of freckles traipsed across her 

boyish breasts like crushed pepper 

           faded by summer. I was afraid 

she’d fade too, but she sighed and 

           took my hands down ravines, 

through forests, my mouth as dry as 

           the Gobi we’d just studied in Geography. 

We both forgot about her brother, the 

           things he’d done. We swam the Nile and

Rio Grande instead. We climbed Everest 

           and never stopped looking down.